Maybe Together
by fitzsimmons-bbc-and-cats
Summary: As Fitz lies in a coma in the hospital, Jemma sits by his side. A nurse suggests that she speak to him and she decides to read The Fault in Our Stars to her best friend, which only brings feelings to the light.


So I had the idea for this a while ago and am just now getting around to writing it. Set post-finale. I do not own the Marvel Cinimatic Universe or any of its characters, nor do I own The Fault in Our Stars. But goodness do I wish I did.

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The hospital room was bare and the lights hanging from the ceiling were starting to hurt Jemma's eyes. Her mind was enveloped with the soft beeps of various machines hooked up to Fitz and the gentle squeaks and scuffs of nurses shoes as they moved silently through the halls outside the door. He'd been in a coma for almost 2 weeks now and Jemma's grief had finally been overtaken by her utter exhaustion. For the most part she just sat in the padded chair by his bed and stared blankly at charts and machines. She asked questions occasionally. Ate, drank, and showered when she dragged herself out of her stupor long enough to remember to do just that.

But today was different. A book sat on top of Fitz's blanket, its blue and black cover staring up at her. One of the nurses, the nice one with the pretty brown eyes, had mentioned that hearing the voice of a loved one sometime's helped patients wake up from their coma. Jemma, of course, knew that this was neither scientifically probable nor proven, but she was tired and bored and desperate for a distraction. She'd been meaning to read the book anyway. She just hadn't imagined it would be like this though. Sighing she picked up the book and glanced at her watch. 11:30 A.M it read. She flipped it open to the first page and took in a deep breath.

"The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green." She turned another page. "As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the ocean: 'Conjoined rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.' 'What's that?" I asked. 'Water,' the Dutchman said, 'Well, and time.' Peter Van Houten, An Imperial Affliction." She thought for a moment about how time was against her now, glancing at Fitz's scruffy chin and peaceful face, and then she turned the page three more times, finally coming to the first chapter. "Late in the winter of my seventeenth year..."

Reading the book was slow going. She had to stop every now and then to eat, to go to the bathroom, and sometimes her voice got so sore that she had to rest in silence for a while. While she read aloud, she silently pondered her time left with Fitz. She thought about all the things she hadn't had the courage or heart to say down there at the bottom of the ocean. She felt her heart sink into her stomach when Augustus proclaimed that 'love is just a shout into the void'. She cried at the words 'I lit up like a Christmas tree Hazel Grace' and she yearned for the life with Fitz that she could lose at any moment in the coming days. She had to scoot her chair closer and closer to Fitz's bed as the morning faded to afternoon to evening and her voice became more tired and weaker.

She was sniffling, her vision blured from tears and her voice disappearing with its overuse, as she spoke the words 'you gave me forever within the numbered days and I am so grateful'. As she flipped to the last page, her eyes spilling over with salty tears, she glanced at her watch and saw it was almost 3 and she heard Fitz's steady breathing as the only sound in the now empty hospital. Teardrops dotted the page and her voice squeaked out the words, "I do, Augustus. I do."

She folded the book closed and set it under Fitz's cold hand. Her eyes seem to shut on themselves and she rested her head on Fitz's shoulder. The tears spilling down her face were only partially from the tragedy of the book. She missed Fitz, her Fitz. The Fitz who had given his last breath, his only hope at survival, to prove his love to her. The Fitz who had believed in Ward until the last possible moment. The Fitz who had been willing to jump out of a plane to save her life. The Fitz who had stood beside her and a deadly disease in their lab to find her a cure. The Fitz who had given her a forever at her side. She missed him dearly and she wanted him back. She wanted him to open his eyes and look at her and make some stupid annoying comment about monkeys. She wanted him to hold her and pet her hair. She wanted him to kiss her. More than anything she wanted him to kiss her.

And the book, the stupid book with its life lessons and tragedy, had brought all that into the fore front of her thoughts. Then something from the book came to her and she remembered what Fitz had said all those months ago in their lab. Though it was late and her voice was nearly gone and she knew there was very little to no chance he would remember this, she shifted so that her lips were brushing his ear. Choking on her tears, she forced and small smile and whispered, "Maybe together will be our always."


End file.
